Silent Angel, Prodigal Son
by LadySkywalkerKirkland
Summary: At this point, Padme Amidala didn't expect to fall in love, not after everything she'd believed in had been all but destroyed. Certainly she would have laughed at the idea of falling in love with a presumed-dead Jedi castaway. And the castaway in question never expected to be given a second chance - at life, at destiny, and at the love he thought had long forgotten him...
1. Prologue: Fall

**Disclaimer: **I am neither Disney nor George Lucas, and am not wishful, expectant, or _accepting_ of profit from this work (except for reviews and happiness). Thank you and do enjoy.

**A/N: **Here, have an early Christmas AU. Leave a review!

**Next Morning A/N: **I ought to have mentioned this last night, but I was really tired. The major difference in this AU is that the mission to Ansion went long and Obi-Wan and Anakin were not available to accept the mission to guard Padme. However, the Clone Wars still began (after all, they had been planned for a long time). The War proceeded about as usual, except for all instances in which Anakin and Padme were specifically sent on missions together. In fact, by the end of the war, due to different circumstances and meetings, Padme actually knows Ahsoka better than she knows Anakin - more on that later.

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**Prologue: Fall**

_"__In light of the unfortunate recent tensions between our Order and the Galactic Congress, which have been brought to our attention through several incidents, the High Council of the Jedi Order would like to extend a new hand of friendship and partnership to the Senate and its head. A seat in this Council has, as has happened far too often over the course of the past three years, become unexpectedly available in the last few weeks. We propose that our two organizations renew our commitment to cooperation by creating a new position – the Senate Liaison Chair of the Jedi High Council. While the Jedi Order has acted with a great deal of autonomy in our private affairs for centuries, we understand that the past centuries have also been free of galactic war, and that such devastating conflicts require complete honesty between partners in the struggle for peace, and require each body also not to look solely to its own interests. The appointed Councilor will become the bridge between our two worlds. They will represent the interests of the Senate and the Office of the Supreme Chancellor in Council meetings and will in turn report the content of these meetings back as a means of accountability between our two ancient institutions._

_ "__A list has been prepared of ten Masters who are currently or have recently been under consideration for Council seats. All have agreed to come before the Senate to speak for themselves if you require it. Know, however, that the assignment of our Council seats is not treated like your elections. They will not attempt to sell themselves, but will instead provide you with a clear picture of their beliefs and values, especially with respect to the war, and the assignment the Senate agrees upon will be accepted by all with humility and dutiful gravity, as is our way. You may also propose a Jedi not on this list to the Council, though we respectfully ask that you limit your total period of review to one week after the motion to create the Chair has been passed, and that you adhere to the traditional values of the Jedi hierarchy in that you select a Jedi who has been granted the rank of Master within our Order…"_

With effort, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker kept himself from violently thumping his fighter's control console with his mechno as he and his squadron did another pass over another mountain range of a frankly boring moon looking for Separatist hideouts that probably didn't exist.

That position should've been his.

Even several full days after the Siege of Coruscant had been lifted, Anakin remained on-planet, ordered to take a week to not only rest, but also to refresh his knowledge of the war's progress on the large scale by taking advantage of the capital's central military command and intelligence centers.

That was when the Supreme Chancellor had called him to the Senate Offices to make the proposal.

Palpatine's suggestion that Anakin represent his Office on the Council had been more than unexpected, and Anakin had been in shock for few moments, overwhelmed by a tide of jumbled feeling. There had been the usual flustered, slightly embarrassed pride at the Chancellor's high opinion of him as a Jedi – after all, it's not like he got many sincere compliments from the people in his life, the uncomfortably fervid hero worship of the faceless masses notwithstanding. That had been coupled with a warmth of happiness at having earned Palpatine's personal trust to such an extent. But there had been pessimism too, a bit of logical, realist squashing of hope.

The Council barely tolerated him. Many of its members distrusted him – and for what? Because Yoda hadn't been able to foretell the future of a nine-year-old boy with perfect clarity? And even many of those who grudgingly admitted to his abilities disliked him.

There were a few who seemed alright enough.

Master Yoda treated Anakin the same way he treated everyone else, though Anakin wasn't sure if that counted for anything, because, really, no one but Yoda really knew Yoda's thoughts. Although, truth be told, in some of the old Grand Master's more eccentric moments Anakin doubted even that.

Kit Fisto had always been friendly in their few casual interactions. But then, Kit Fisto was jovial with everyone.

And after having spent a couple of years as the Master of Ahsoka Tano, Anakin imagined that his friendship with Plo Koon was a little like what it might be like to have a favorite uncle, the reserved and mysterious Kel Dor Jedi having continued to keep a watchful eye on the little Togruta girl he'd found well into her apprenticeship, and always keeping judgment-free advice at the ready for her woefully inexperienced young mentor.

It had only been about six months since she'd walked away from him down the Temple steps, but she still refused to contact him. Anakin knew she wanted to be able to start a new life without constant reminders of the horrible end of her old one, but this was taking things a bit far. She was still in contact with Master Plo, though, and while, respecting her request, Plo had declined to give Anakin her comm channel or current address, he had also kept Anakin more-or-less fully informed of how she was doing and what she was doing (_against_ her wishes), and Anakin was grateful for that.

And there was Obi-Wan, of course. Obi-Wan was a given.

So that was two Council Masters that liked him and two that were ambiguous.

That left, since there was currently a seat open, a grand total of _seven_ Masters who would rather the Force never be brought to balance than it be brought to balance by him.

Some of them were sort of civil about the way they expressed that opinion. Others not so much.

Saesee Tiin and Ki-Adi-Mundi were of the habit of reciting basic Jedi teachings to him rote, as they would to a small youngling. Apparently they were of the mind that if someone didn't accept those teachings at face value, it must be because they'd never heard them before, not because they legitimately held a different opinion.

Shaak Ti's eyes flashed with irritation every time he opened his mouth, like she was deciding whether or not the Order would be best served by chucking him off the pinnacle of the Tranquility Spire.

He didn't even want to think about Mace Windu.

It was just as well that the cynical little voice in his head had spoken up to temper his hope, since the Council had done more than deny his request. In fact, they had turned the request back on the Chancellor, specifically pointing out certain Jedi traditions as if to say, "Skywalker's not an option, no matter what you think is best."

One would think that someone the Chancellor trusted on both a personal and a professional level would be better suited than a stranger, but no.

Sitting in his Temple quarters, he found he was only able to listen to the first few minutes of Master Windu's address to the Senate before hurling the innocent datapad across the room to crash with a sickening crunch into the opposite wall. Hoping to keep his pet projects in peace (some of the parts had been rather hard to find), he spent the rest of the evening relieving the Temple inventories of quite a _lot_ of training remotes of various difficulties before returning to collapse to sleep in an exhausted heap. Though he knew from experience that weariness and dreamless sleep only took the edge off of bitter resentment for a little bit, it was better than nothing.

The next day Anakin found himself on his way back to the Outer Rim to rejoin the fleet, now tasked with taking out a new series of completely automated Separatist mini space stations, refueling and auto-repair waypoints in an out-of-the-way sector, where the Seps were testing a new line of hyperspace-capable vultures, and wouldn't it just be _fun_ if he got out of their hair for a while and stopped causing political tensions with his unacceptable Skywalkerness?

And they wondered why he didn't want to be them when he grew up.

As if he wasn't grown up already.

Anakin tightened his grip on his controls, neatly banking his fighter into a gentle turn to avoid a very obvious, large mountain, which was the closest yet the survey of this moon had come to "interesting."

Having discovered that the mini-stations were virtually undefended and very easy to destroy, Anakin had decided to take a squadron out and knock a bunch out in one standard rotation's worth of work. The _Resolute_ was on standby just a little beyond Republic-occupied space – close enough to reach in the case of some kind of mechanical failure, but not close enough for a little one-man fighter's communications system. Luckily for them, the prototype stations didn't appear to be linked, so they couldn't tell each other they were being attacked. The Separatist researchers monitoring them on whatever faraway base would be nearly incapable of catching up before the damage was irreparable. The hope was that, with Republic knowledge of their new development obvious, the whole project would be scrapped – the whole point was surprise, after all.

But still, they did a quick sweep below the atmosphere of every moon or planet housing a station as a precautionary measure. In the midst of his tumultuous thoughts of Council slights, Anakin felt vaguely pleased that this particular moon, boring as it was, had seen the ravages of neither war nor tourism.

It was nearly perfect – and perfectly uninhabited. Temperate forests of lush mixed woodland, foliage in all the colors of the visible spectrum, nestled in sheltered mountain valleys, while towering peaks swept up to snow-capped heights, the melting water from which ran down alpine streams to crystal-clear lakes. The clone pilots had been commenting on it the whole time.

With a jolt, Anakin realized that they had stopped. He opened his mouth to ask if they'd spotted something suspicious when he realized they weren't looking, they were _listening_. He could hear muffled tones in his headset where the clones' helmet receivers were all picking up the noise, but he couldn't quite make out what was being said.

He fought a sudden, unexplainable urge to shoot his fighter into a dive and attempt to get as lost as possible in the thickest part of the mountains – maybe even the forest. He squished the thought. There was nothing wrong. Sure, they shouldn't be receiving any outside transmissions – there was no reason, anyways – but maybe something was wrong with his comm. Maybe this was like that time with Ahsoka, that last time they fought together when there had really been buzz droids all over the underbelly of his fighter and he hadn't realized.

The urge was so strong now that he had to tense his whole body to keep himself in his seat, because _danger_. He opened his mouth again, this time to ask the clones what was up, and was cut off again – this time by his wingman's answer, an answer that made his blood run cold with a deep and deadly chill.

"It will be done, my lord."


	2. I: Secret

**Disclaimer: I'm still not George Lucas, nor do I own Disney, to which my college-student bank accounts can attest.**

**A/N:** I'm still sorry about the lack of more detailed information I gave before posting the first chapter; hopefully what I added to last chapter's author's note will help clear up the confusion. That was the prologue, now the main body of the story begins five years later. I've taken liberties with the family of Wedge Antilles to create an OC; I prefer to be creative rather than a slave to Wookieepedia, though I like to use EU information where I can get it, so I hope I can be forgiven for that. It also feels like there's an unfortunate amount of exposition in this chapter, though I suspect you're at least a little bit interested to understand what's going on in the galaxy, rather than my leaving you completely in the dark.

**Lord Lelouch: **Yes; it makes sense to me that Anakin would be much more cynical or pessimistic in this timeline, at least at that point (he'll be rather different when we meet him again). As you can see, Padme now is, too. Neither of them had many friends, and I can't help but think that they created a lot of each others' happiness. Without each other, then, they'd be much more prone to become bitter individuals. I hope to change that. :)

Thanks to **sodorland**, **Veritas1995**, and **Jedi Master Misty Sman-Esay** for the kind review and Christmas wishes!

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**Chapter I: Secret**

**Five Years Later**

Padmé Naberrie Amidala, onetime law-defending Queen and Senator of her home planet of Naboo, celebrated her thirty-second birthday by a spectacular flaunting of Republic law.

Or rather, with a flaunting that would have been spectacular had anyone known what she was up to. As it was, this whole operation was as secret as the rest of hers.

After all, Padmé was familiar enough with the government she had once supported to be able to list off the top of her head the innumerable charges that would be brought against her should she be caught doing what she was doing, leading what she was leading.

Espionage. Forgery of official documents. Destruction of commercial property. Theft of commercial starships. Piracy. Arson. Terrorism.

Vigilantism.

Treason.

After one last, quick briefing with the field operatives she'd chosen for this mission, she headed to the bridge of the medium-sized escort frigate that had been liberated into her little revolutionary fleet.

Padmé and her partners in crime liked to call themselves the Alliance to Restore the Republic. Everyone else in the galaxy liked to call them "those mysterious happenings that are starting to rouse the suspicions of Republic military intelligence."

Well, let them wonder.

After all, the quality of military intelligence had decreased considerably following the collapse of the Grand Army – just another sign that the world she'd tried to make a difference in was decaying faster than Coruscant's public transit system. She stifled an ironic chuckle as she thought of the way her dear, gentle father – already a _former_ Senator when she was just a little girl – had warned her about the kill-or-be-killed world of politics.

How little he knew what would happen to her – to the Republic – in the years following her acceptance of the royal name of Amidala from her people.

A blockade of Naboo, and then an invasion, by the ridiculously over-powerful Trade Federation.

Increasing corruption and the shattering of the Republic. The rise of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and the tensions that grew as the Senate continued to refuse to acknowledge those systems their right to secede.

The secret creation of an army of clones to serve the Republic.

A long and horrifying war.

The revelation that her growing distrust in Chancellor Palpatine was well-placed, as he had been plotting with the late enigmatic former Jedi Count Dooku long years before the war's beginning in an attempt to gain more powers for himself. Most of the administrative branch had been in on it, too.

Widespread belief held that he had wanted to make himself a dictator, to turn on the Separatists and crush them, and use the victory as his crowning glory. One would be surprised at what people would concede to someone who had successfully ended a war.

And then there had been the way he had caused a diversion to make his escape – if the horrible slaughter of hundreds of loyal Jedi could be summed up with a little word like "diversion." The number of Knights and Masters residing in the Temple at the time had been nearly halved. The death toll among those out on the front lines had been even worse – even with warning. Survivors had trickled in. A few had been confirmed dead. Many were still unaccounted for.

Once Palpatine reached his hideout in the Outer Rim, he had called the remainder of the Grand Army back to him, combining it into a hodgepodge force together with the remainders of the droid armies of the Separatists. Holed up somewhere in a cluster of far-flung sectors like a wounded predator in its den, he was nearly untouchable.

The Republic had survived, but barely. They had put together what they could of an army out of planetary defense forces, leaning heavily on the warlike nature of the Mon Cal and the belligerency of the Corellians (who had almost refused out of sheer pride) for the bulk of their new fleet. They had let the Separatists be for now, striking a wary truce as both parties rebuilt. What was left of their non-droid armies were doing their part to keep a wary eye on those sectors in the Outer Rim, too, as were the Mandalorians, who had said nothing to either side of the ended war but seemed instead to be attempting to use the power vacuum of the galaxy to rebuild their warrior state – and with frankly alarming speed.

All that, Padmé supposed, was to be expected in such a situation. As was the paranoia.

After all, if a Chancellor who had been so loved and trusted could have been so despicable, could have come so close to destroying the Republic as they knew it, who else might be hiding secret dreams of tyranny?

But it was the paranoia that was the problem. Though the Senate officially still functioned, as well as the Separatist government, in reality most systems had drawn in to themselves. The galaxy teetered on the edge of anarchy.

And so it was with firm resolve that Padmé had pledged not only her commitment but her full service to the little group of Senators who still wanted to fight for the ideals of democracy.

Alderaan. Chandrila. Corellia. Mon Calamari. Pantora. And a few others.

And Naboo.

Padmé resigned her Senate post three years ago, citing family struggles – and it was true that her father had been very ill very often lately – and more or less disappeared from the scope of galactic events. The fierce, brave Queen who had stood strong for so long had fallen silent, just like that.

Padmé hadn't bothered to take the time to see what kind of sensation her sudden absence had caused. As the new active head of the Alliance, she had more important things to worry about.

She soon found out that the Alderaanians, at least, had been preparing for this for a long time. She wasn't surprised. Anyone who knew Bail Organa as well as she'd come to wouldn't be fooled by his pacifist values for a second. He was not a man to be lightly dismissed.

With the help of a few geniuses he'd recruited, she'd managed to make their operations usually seem like the work of other parties – planetary leaders who had gone rogue, or maybe organized crime – the very people the Alliance fought against.

The innumerable planetary leaders who had gone rogue or turned tyrant.

Organized crime and newly formed drug rings. Slave trafficking.

Paranoid plots to overthrow the Republic government.

She and her people took them all out, and no one was the wiser – at least, not yet.

After all, the biggest problem in the universe was that no one was willing to do what it took to perform justice, to actually enforce the values of right and wrong that they all paid lip service to.

_"__The biggest problem in this universe is nobody _helps_ each other."_

Padmé stopped, unaware that she had been walking more and more slowly, consumed by troubling thoughts.

Now where had _that_ come from? Certainly not from her own mind; it was far too sentimental and naïve for that. It _almost_ felt like memory…

"Padmé? Hey. You said you were coming to the bridge, but you never showed up. Is…is everything okay?"

Kyella Antilles had a hand on her shoulder, friendly concern written on her pretty young face. Padmé realized with a start that she was still a ways from her destination. She straightened, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand.

"I'm fine. I take it we've returned to Lycradel III. I felt us turn around earlier."

"Uh-huh." An intelligent spark lighting her eyes, one of the Alliance's brightest young minds tightened her hold on Padmé's shoulder and more-or-less dragged her toward the bridge. "There was an intact vulture station at Karad V. Defunct and inoperative, but intact – no sign of Republic tampering."

Kyella was one of the geniuses, recruited by her fighter pilot uncle. Padmé sometimes felt bad that the brilliant young woman had dropped out of university with one year left, and had told her so much once, only to be brushed off with a quick smile and a shake of the head. According to Kyella, she felt her intelligence was much better served making the galaxy a better, safer place than it ever had been doing whatever meaningless pet research had been thrown her way by petty corporate funding. The girl was a natural code-breaker, and she lived and breathed strategy and intrigue. She had been the key to the successful completion of many missions.

Kyella dragged Padmé over to one corner of the bridge and practically shoved her at her workstation before flopping down in her chair. She pointed to something on a sensor screen that looked like gibberish to Padmé. "See, we haven't quite come upon the debris field yet, but the pattern of the smaller pieces that drifted after the destruction is entirely undisturbed. To me, this says that the ARC-170 squadron that went to survey the planet never came back out again. Grand Army protocol dictates that they would have come back through this same area when leaving the planet, just as a precaution against the Seps. If we're looking for a lost clone squadron, I'd say this is the place. They would've been too far from their capital ship to receive the snake's transmiss –"

Kyella suddenly froze in her seat, then leaned forward intently toward her sensor screen, fingers gliding swiftly over the controls before freezing again.

"Oh, _by the powers_," she breathed. "I don't _believe_ it."

"What?" Padmé asked, not sure whether to be worried or excited at the younger woman's tone of awe.

"We only stayed just long enough last time to confirm that the mini-station here had been destroyed. But now we're trying to see more of it. Do you see that, just coming into our field of view behind the main body of what's left of the station?"

Kyella pointed and zoomed in even further, and Padmé felt her eyes grow wide.

"Is that?"

"It is." Kyella's voice was still soft with disbelieving reverence. "It's the hyperdrive ring of a Jedi starfighter."

Padmé almost forgot to breathe. This mission had just become ten times more important.


	3. II: Fate

**Disclaimer:** Still not George Lucas or Disney. Sorry to disappoint.

**A/N: **Sorry about the wait. I didn't expect it to be this long, but I had a standardized test to take, followed by preparations for family being here for Christmas, followed by Christmas and family being here. At this point my introverted self has been forced to socialize for so long that she just wants to crawl into a cave for a month or so.

Just to clarify about this AU one last time for everyone: The Phantom Menace happened business as usual, but the mission to Ansion (_The Approaching Storm_, anyone?) went long and Obi-Wan and Anakin weren't available to guard Padmé. Some other Jedi (who knows who, who cares?) took the job, and Anakin and Padmé met only a few times over the course of the war. They've met each other enough times for Padmé to recognize adult Anakin, but other than that they have no relationship to speak of; they don't even know each other well enough to be friends.

About the state of the galaxy: the Republic and CIS (Separatists) both still exist under an uneasy truce, while systems such as Mandalore remain neutral. It's pretty much the wartime boundaries without the war. Although in reality most systems are just looking to their own interests rather than trying to support either failing government. Since there is no Empire, the Alliance (formed through the influence of the Senators from that deleted RotS scene) is not really rebelling against anything, rather they're a vigilante organization trying to support and clean up the Republic. In addition, in this chapter you'll see mentioned the Dark Zone, which is where the "snake" (commonly refers to Palpatine) has taken his closest supporters along with the clone and droid armies that were both secretly under his command during the Clone Wars. He hasn't moved, but no one is quite strong enough to attack him, and no one really knows what he's doing in there...

Thanks to **Lord Lelouch**, **Jedi Master Misty Sman-Esay**, **ambre**, **JACarter**, and **sodorland** for review and encouragement! (Any questions I haven't answered are things I want you to wait to find out :D )

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**II: Fate**

Kyella found her voice first, calling over to one of her teammates on the other side of the bridge. "Jaat! Jaat, are you seeing this?"

Her young male Twi'lek friend – from the same university, even – called back with controlled panic lacing his thick accent. "Yes, I see it, but look again! I don't know about you, but I also see the fighters behind it!" He slammed a palm down on a ship-wide comm. "Unfriendly fighters spotted! Gunners to your stations, now!"

Padmé could see the anxiety in Jaat's expression as his skin fearfully paled from deep cerulean to a sort of sky-blue. Rather than try and find what he was looking at with her own sensors, Kyella settled for practically launching herself across the bridge toward his seat, with Padmé right behind her, along with Captain Reddins, who had already confirmed Jaat's hastily-given order to the rest of the ship's crew.

"Are our shields up?" Padmé asked the captain tersely when he reached them.

The middle-aged Corellian nodded gravely. "We came in wary, of course, but to be honest, the _Star Nymph_'s shields aren't particularly strong to begin with. She may be an escort-class ship, but she's not the most well-made one I've commanded. And as you know, my lady, we were expecting to be fighting perhaps a few clones on the ground, not working clone fighters. I mean, by my word, it's been five years! How on earth do they still have fuel?"

"They'd have to have left their ships' engines stone-cold for months and months at a time," Kyella said, brows furrowed in confusion as enemy proximity claxons began to blare around them. Reddins left them to command the navigation crew and gun batteries. Zips of yellow showed where the two outdated but perfectly flyable old Naboo N-1s they had brought with them had left the ship's small hangar bay. The fighters had been a donation from the current Queen of Naboo, who had conveniently "lost" them while they were being moved to be recycled for parts.

"How do you know Palpatine hasn't just established a new base here?" Jaat asked skeptically. "In five years he's done nothing but maintain his defenses. There's got to be some sort of resources or civilization in the Dark Zone – even if he hasn't got Kamino or cloning technologies, a _droid_ factory's not so hard to build – and even though this is still solid Seppie space, we're not all that far from there, just a few sectors away."

Kyella shook her head vigorously. "I was just explaining to Padmé that the drift pattern of the debris from when the station was originally destroyed is undisturbed. They must have come from the moon…"

She trailed off, a thoughtful look on her face, similar to the one she had worn when they had first noticed the hyperspace ring.

"…because of debris and dust!" Jaat was saying. "I think we need to get out of here, and fast, and make sure they don't track us back. Then, if we really must come back, we come back with a real X-Wing squadron in addition to the ground troops. Better yet, we drop an anonymous tip with Republic military intelligence – or Separatist, or _both_ – and let them handle it."

"No," Kyella breathed, and Padmé had turned to ask her what she'd realized when a huge blow knocked them both off their feet as if to prove Jaat's point.

"You see?" he cried, back in panic mode.

The captain appeared at Padmé's side the next moment. "I'm sorry, my lady, but we're going to have to fall back to a waypoint and call a full fighter squadron." In the background, she briefly caught Jaat smirking at an increasingly worried Kyella as they picked themselves up off the ground. "These ARC-170s are still armed with proton torpedoes, and possibly other firepower, used to destroy the mini-stations. We don't know if these two unfriendlies are the only two, our shields can't stand up to torpedoes and the like, and the N-1s aren't as maneuverable as an ARC-170, not to mention they only have forward guns."

Padmé sighed and nodded. "I hate to leave with them knowing we were here, but you're right. We don't know what we're up against. Fall back to the first station in the row for now, but tell communications to be ready to call for backup. We're heading back out as soon as we can."

"No! We _can't_ leave!" Kyella's uncharacteristically defiant proclamation rang out across the bridge, cutting through the hubbub of the attack. Padmé turned to see her with her back to them, still standing straight and stubborn, eyes glued to Jaat's sensor screen. "We have to get down onto the moon."

"Are you crazy? Why in hells would we want to do that? We'd get blown up from the sky by those fighters!" Jaat cried.

Kyella spun to face Padmé and the captain, pointing at the screen. "Don't you _see_? The debris is undisturbed! There's nothing else here, no sign of an enemy base. Those fighters are war-era, unmodified, and you said yourself, Captain, that they still have their arsenals from their last mission. Well," she said, correcting herself, "technically, it was their second-to-last-mission. They stayed here because their final mission – Executive Order 66 – is as of yet unfulfilled. That Jedi is still alive!"

Everyone stood in silence for a couple moments as Kyella's desperate eyes begged for some kind of reaction.

The captain moved first, heading over to the head communications officer and ordering the confused man to try to remove their long-range communications equipment from its station. Padmé braced herself against a railing as the captain moved from communications to navigation, and upon his order the _Star Nymph_ made an about-face dive for the moon's surface, the beleaguered N-1s following a bit behind while trying to hold off the clones. A lucky clone shot had one of them down in the next minute, and a torpedo blast slammed into the rear of the ship even as they broke into the lower atmosphere.

One of the pilots swore loudly as the starboard engine became unresponsive. Padmé found an extra seat and strapped herself securely in place as the bridge crew struggled valiantly to pull the _Star Nymph_ up out of its steep dive. The navigator had had the foresight to take them in over a broad grassland area, rather than forest or mountains, and with a bone-jarring jolt they slammed into the moon's surface and slid, bumping over every little ridge and gully, for at least ten minutes before they came to a complete halt.

Though the clone fighters were, strangely, nowhere to be seen on the still-working scanners, Captain Reddins ordered the quick evacuation of the ship, and the little crew began to take stock of injuries and what supplies were still usable. Of those who had been inside the ship, there were only a few minor injuries – bruises, mild concussions and the like from those who were thrown about the ship during the altercation. Fortunately, the swoop bikes to be used by the field agents had been in secure storage, and all but one were still operable.

A wide swath of breathtaking multicolored forest skirted the foothills of a towering, outswept arm of one of the moon's many mountain ranges. As soon as the assessment was complete, the captain ordered the crew to begin ferrying themselves and the supplies to the cover of the woods in shifts, abandoning the _Star Nymph_ to hide from the enemy among the trees.

Padmé frowned up at the glowering clouds that had begun to gather above them after the crash landing and hugged her arms about herself, shivering in what would have, on Naboo, been a late-autumn chill. She tried not to think about the second N-1 pilot, still unaccounted for and likely blown right out the sky protecting them, as she buckled her blaster holster around her waist and mounted a swoop behind one of the field agents.

Alliance members had died in the line of duty before, of course. The danger of missions in a shattered galaxy was directly related to their importance – and all Alliance missions were extremely important. One or two of the fallen she had known by name.

But this was the first true armed field mission Padmé had accompanied her troops on, and so it was with a heavy heart she remembered that it had been at least five years – at least since the tumult of the Clone Wars – since someone had died before her eyes to protect her or while following her orders.

She had had half a mind to have stayed crouched behind the _Star Nymph_ with a blaster pistol, ready to defend her people against the laughably more powerful clone fighters until all her crewmen and friends had reached the relative safety of the forest. But the logical side of her, which had ruled her since the end of the war, reminded her that she was more-or-less the heart of the Alliance. The safety of her as their leader was more important, strategically, than her grief over a few volunteers.

As rain began to pelt her face as they sped across the prairie toward the mountains, Padmé idly wondered if she had been cutting herself too far off from emotion, if more indulgence in feeling some time back would have helped her to keep the tide of grief at bay a little while longer. But it had been loosed by the pilots' deaths – the pressure that had been building in her for some time now that had found her sleepless at night and distracted from her daytime duties by old memories.

Then she realized something else and this time, she couldn't stop her tears, though they were more-or-less hidden by the rain.

This wasn't the first time someone had died for her. But it was the first time it had happened on her birthday.

The little band stopped in a small but sheltered clearing some way into the trees. The agent she was riding with – Harker, she thought his name was – frowned in concern and helped her dismount the bike when she made no move to do so on her own. Standing there, getting dripped on by trees, she tried desperately to come to her senses and help her people set up camp.

Something warm draped across her shoulders, and with a jolt Padmé realized Harker had fetched her a blanket and was leading her to where the others had already started setting up a shelter.

It was hearing Jaat and Kyella's incessant bickering that brought her back to herself, at least a bit.

"And how do you suppose we find this Jedi, eh?" Jaat snapped as he struggled to drape a massive tarp across the lower branches of two tall conifers.

"Well, we've got the ship's long-distance comm," Kyella said as she inspected tent stakes to see if they were well-anchored in the rich earth. "When we call for backup, we'll send for a ship that has a powerful bioscanner in addition to an X-Wing squadron. Problem solved."

"What, and we sit here till then, hoping those fighters don't decide to firebomb the woods?"

"I assume the captain will have us move to a more remote position at first light tomorrow."

"Great. More walking. More rain. More wet. Just what I wanted."

"You signed up for this job, Jaat – Padmé!"

Kyella hurried up to them and took Padmé from Harker. From the look on her face, Padmé could tell the young woman knew she'd been crying. Her big eyes widened in concern. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, just a little tired." She moved to take the blanket off. "Just show me where you need help," she said, but her voice was weaker than she would've liked.

Kyella's face set and she moved the blanket more securely around Padmé's shoulders. "Oh, no you don't. You just rest." Her expression softened. "I know it's been years since you've seen a field mission," she said, low enough that only Padmé could hear.

Reluctantly, Padmé let herself be led into one of the tents and sat down, leaning against a large, smooth tree trunk. She let her mind wander as more of the crew arrived and the camp took shape around her despite the cold and the rain. She idly traced designs in the bark with a finger, feeling herself become sleepier and sleepier until the bark felt almost warm beneath her hand.

The Jedi. She thought about what she knew about Jedi and wondered if the castaway would find them before the Alliance reinforcements arrived.

And then she thought about home, and about something that had been bothering her since they landed.

A lone Force-sensitive on a lonelier world, lost. Her finding them, quite by accident. A downed ship. Repairs to be made. Memories of naïve idealism randomly coming to the forefront of her mind.

There was something about this that felt like déjà vu.

There was something about this that felt like fate.


	4. III: Torn

**Disclaimer:** Not George, not Disney, yadda yadda yadda.

**A/N: **Phew! Okay, this chapter is long and full of a few rather unexpected and possibly crazy plot points. In my defense, these were not things I came up under the influence of New Year's Eve (hehe) or anything like that. Actually, I had most of this planned out way ahead of time when I first conceived of this story (yes, even the crazy bits). However, I wrote the Padme stuff first because it made more sense to me (from a standpoint of narrative and creating suspense) to leave this chapter for a little later. (Also most future chapters will not be this long).

**Lord Lelouch: **Oh, don't you worry. The romance will probably be painfully slow in development.

**Jedi Master Misty Sman-Esay: **No problem! Also, lol yeah I don't see nerdy Jaat as much of an outdoorsy Twi'lek.

**Maria Rose: **Yes, and yes to your questions. Also thank you!

Thanks also to **sodorland **and **JACarter** for the encouraging reviews!

* * *

**III: Torn**

The rain pelted Anakin as he struggled to clamber up the rocky incline. He had to get back home and get his stave.

There had been death this evening.

_Ten out of twelve ships downed. Thirty graves._

Now there would be more.

And what was more, he had company.

Blinking hard to keep the water droplets out of his eyes, he instinctively dropped to his knees as the wind gusted, threatening to throw him off the slope. With great care and even more concentration he picked his way among the rocks, wishing not for the first time in five years that he had salvaged a small solar battery, from, say, one of the astromechs, before Jules and Rascal had led their remaining brothers to burn what was left of the pilotless fighters – including his – in a blazing inferno that could be seen on the other side of the mountains.

Yes, a solar battery would have been nice. Ion batteries were good, but they only lasted about a year, and it was very, very hard to mountain-climb with no gear and only one hand, Force or no Force.

With effort, Anakin reached up with his left hand and dragged himself onto the mountain ledge-path that led to the fairly sheltered cave he called home. He lay there for a moment, simply catching his breath, before starting along the treacherous natural walkway, one side of which plummeted down in a near-vertical drop much steeper than the comparatively easy way he'd climbed up.

After only a few steps leaning into the wind, he gave up all thought of dignity, deciding that while going on hands and knees along the ledge would take twice as long, it was preferable to slipping to his death off the rain-slick stone. With practiced ease he tucked the useless mechno into his clothing to keep it out of the way. He still kept it gauntleted, because even though it had no power, he figured if he ever got off this rock it would be easier to find a battery than a whole new arm, so he'd like to keep it as safe from the elements as possible. The gauntlet was still mostly intact, as were all the heavy-duty or leather pieces of his Jedi clothing, except for his boots, which had been through the most wear and were now held together with so many pieces of bark and animal furs that he felt downright prehistoric. Most of his other clothing and his robe still technically _existed_, though their usefulness was debatable. His robe at least he had supplemented with a makeshift coat of sorts made of animal skins – a mishmash of herbivores and carnivores, proof that he had both hunted and _been_ hunted.

The coat, which he wore now, had a hood of sorts – as a Jedi, Anakin had grown fond of hoods – but the wind was much too strong for it to stay in place without him holding it there, and he needed his left hand to guide him along the ledge. So the hood stayed down, and the rain beat down on him and plastered his dirty, tangled, overlong hair onto his head, running down to soak his clothes below.

_Come one, come all, and see the Hero with No Fear crawling on the ground while soaking wet! Look at how the man who was supposed to be your savior spends his time!_

It was the kind of thing that would've filled Anakin with a raw, frustrated anger once upon a time. But he had to live, and he had to endure, and there were some things that just had to be done.

There was no one around to see, anyways.

There was usually no one around at all. Except the forest, if one counted the forest as a someone. Anakin still wasn't sure whether he did or not.

In any case, the forest wasn't about to judge him or laugh or at him.

Anakin had often thought to himself and laughed to himself about how crazy that kind of thing would sound if he said it to someone out there in the more normal reaches of the galaxy. But it was true nonetheless – and it was hardly an ordinary forest.

It was a Force-sensitive forest. And it had saved Anakin's life and sanity.

He had heard before about Force-sensitive animals, but never plants. Plants were different than animals. The Force-using beasts of the world did just that – _used _the Force, if in simple ways: to sense danger or help themselves heal quickly. Things Anakin had unconsciously done before he could walk. But plants, these trees – they were, like all plants, a wellspring of the Living Force, only _so much more so_.

Like the Jedi, they were a bastion of the Light side of the Force.

Unlike the Jedi, they merely existed. They didn't judge, or indoctrinate, or scold. They simply _were_. There was no question of loyalties or motivations. Instead, they gave and gave and gave out of that unending fountain – for support, for aid in meditation.

For comfort and healing.

* * *

_He knew. He knew everything now. Or almost everything._

_Anakin had felt the massive shift in the galaxy – no, that wasn't right. Not a shift._

_A sudden and violent rending of all he had ever known._

_Anakin sat crouched beneath a rocky outcropping in the shadow of a great peak. From this vantage point he could observe the plain below, at least several klicks in each direction. No one could sneak up on him from down there, and he would hear if one of the fighters came over the mountains behind him._

_It was just as well. He was hardly in a fit state of alertness._

_Anakin gripped his saber hilt tightly in shaking hands._

_It had been all right at first, when there was nothing but shock and confusion. Being shot at. Avoiding dying._

_Realizing that it was his men shooting at him._

_Shooting back._

_Five of the twelve ARC-170s in the squadron had gone down then – fifteen clones. Four more clones he cut down in his escape from the burning wreckage of his fighter._

_It was just as soon as he had reached a relative, wary position of safety – just as soon as the Force cleared a bit from its desperate warning of _danger_, that he had felt it._

_Death._

_The deaths of Jedi. His brothers and sisters. His only family, since his mother's death._

_Shocked deaths. Painful deaths. Confused deaths. Betrayed deaths. Humiliating deaths. Ignoble deaths in the dirt._

_He had not felt all the deaths personally, could not quite pinpoint who had died where and by whose hand – though he _knew_ they had all been betrayed by the soldiers serving under them. The Jedi were scattered across a galaxy at war, and not even his prodigious power was that precise. But a poisonous tide of the Dark side of the Force had swept in an implacable wave across all, and the light of the Jedi was going out._

_That was when the Coruscant garrison reached the Temple, and Anakin felt himself slowly reduced to a shaking ball of helpless horror._

_The knights and masters present in the Temple were valiantly defending their own, but the clones were not targeting the knights and masters._

_They were targeting younglings, apprentices. _Children.

_And they were having at least some success._

_Anakin felt his mind consumed by directionless rage. How _dare _they! He would make them pay for hurting his people, make them suffer for daring to attack when he was not there to defend._

_But he could do nothing, so he sat under a mountain and made sure he would be alive to avenge his fallen._

* * *

_Two awful, beleaguered, horror-stricken days later, the familiarity of the Dark presence snapped into place as the newly uncovered Force-signature of the Sith Lord who had wrought this madness reasserted itself to recognition._

_Palpatine. Palpatine was the Sith Lord. Darth Sidious._

_A sickening wave of shock and betrayal swept through him._

_And then he really was sick, even though he hadn't eaten in days, when he remembered the proposal he'd been so bitter over not one week earlier._

_Remembered how Palpatine always praised him, always told him all he wanted to hear – even _initiated_ conversations that consisted of little more than complaining about the Council._

_Obi-Wan had seen it – had sensed enough to be wary of Palpatine. And Anakin had been blind, had brushed off the admittedly gentle warnings of the only person who had really cared about him for him and not for his midichlorian count, because he liked what Palpatine had to say and wasn't willing to face the fact that in several key ways, he hadn't yet grown up at all._

_Palpatine and most of the Jedi Council had been fighting over Anakin like children over a pet – and why should he expect anything different when that was how he had treated himself? When he had paid lip service to loyalty, but wagged his tail and happily followed whichever person was currently throwing him the most treats?_

_Anakin curled into himself under a tree and spent the rest of that day and much of the next letting himself be soaked by the rain._

* * *

_The next day, Yammer found him._

_Anakin emerged from his miserable ball of self-loathing and guilt soon enough to kill before he was killed, but not soon enough to stop the downed pilot from contacting his fellow clones._

_He would have to move._

* * *

_One week later, he reached other side of the mountains, and a forest at its foothills that gave way to sweeping plains not unlike others he had seen on his trek over the large moon's surface._

_There was something different about this forest, but he didn't have time to pinpoint what it was. He had to discover whether this area was safe, and, if so, establish some kind of shelter where he could focus on gathering food and supplies, and resting. He had to regain his strength._

* * *

_Obi-Wan escaped three days later. _

_Of course, Anakin had used their still-strong (much to the dismay of Council traditionalists) training bond to check on Obi-Wan several times since what he was calling the Great Betrayal._

_Obi-Wan had been captured by Cody and the rest of his legion, rather than attacked with intent to kill._

_It was odd, really, but Anakin wasn't complaining._

_When Obi-Wan escaped, he headed straight in the direction of Lycradel III, where Anakin was. At first, Anakin had been innocently content to wait for rescue._

_Obi-Wan would bring the ship, and they would leave and go find Sidious and confront him together and kill him. And then they would lead the remainder of the Jedi in a crusade across the galaxy to restore peace and sanity._

_It sounded so simple in his head._

_After a while, he realized that Obi-Wan's presence through their bond felt too tense, too harried. Too harried even for one who had just escaped capture – unless he was still being hunted._

_And then Anakin's hope sank into a deep, paralyzing despair._

_Sidious hadn't given up on him yet._

_Anakin remembered the Darkness of what he'd done after his mother's death, that, completely contrary to her entire character, he had brought even more death in her name. And Palpatine had praised it._

_Obi-Wan knew where Anakin had been last._

_Palpatine did too._

_Somehow, despite his best efforts, Anakin couldn't bring himself to trust himself enough to do the right thing this time despite the advantage of knowledge. Consumed in a black hole of doubt, he believed his attachment to his Master was too great for any good to come of this._

_And so, still drowning in the emotional turmoil of the past weeks, he did what seemed to him the best: Obi-Wan, and thus the rest of the Jedi, would believe him dead and not come looking for him. With luck, Anakin would be too damaged to be of any use to Palpatine, who would doubtless not be fooled._

_Obi-Wan was strong, though. Obi-Wan could get through anything, and he would get through this much more easily than Anakin could._

_And so it was that with equal parts fear and resolve, and ignoring the sharp warnings of the well of the Force he had unknowingly fallen into, that Anakin Skywalker reached up to the rock-solid Force bond he shared with Obi-Wan Kenobi and, summoning all the power that flowed in his veins, took hold of it where it emerged from his soul to run to his Master's._

"I'm sorry, Master."

_And snapped it._

* * *

_Anakin Skywalker came back to himself surrounded – not physically, but spiritually – by a blinding nimbus of the Living Force. Detached, he looked on almost curiously as the shattered pieces of his self were ever-so-carefully picked up and melded back into their places._

_He found, to his great surprise, that despite the gaping hole in his heart, he could breathe. He could think. He was not dead, nor was he a gibbering mess of pain. Astonished, a part of him wondered dazedly what sort of chance could have led him to a place like this, only to have an amused baritone rumble around in his memory, telling him to hold tight, little Ani, because the universe wasn't done with him yet, and nothing happens by accident, because you _are_ the Chosen One, and I'm very, very rarely wrong about things like this._

_There was something comforting about the voice that accompanied the trees in the grove. A sort of protection that he hadn't felt in years._

_It was an impossibility, because there is no self after death._

_But it reminded him strongly of Qui-Gon Jinn._

* * *

Anakin ran his flesh hand over the wood of the stave as the meditative memories faded away into stillness.

The grove had helped him put himself back together. And just like when a bone is broken again so that it can heal straight and true, Anakin felt as though it had been necessary. He still felt like himself, but like a truer, more whole Anakin Skywalker. He was all still there – he was still the boy who had been born a slave and spent his adolescence with the nagging feeling that he would never be good enough – not good in the sense of able enough or accomplished enough, but good in the sense of purity, nobility. Honor. He had feared he was tainted. Cursed.

Now, he no longer feared whether he would ever be good enough. He simply knew that he wouldn't.

There were days that he went about his business, such as it was in the wilderness, content in the knowledge that whether or not Obi-Wan was alive, they would see each other again, one way or another.

There were other days that he didn't leave the cave, but simply spend the whole day crying in a ball for the empty place he didn't know how to fill.

There were days he walked for months looking for the bodies of dead clones, to bury the men who through no fault of their own had been used as pawns, to give them the remembrance they deserved.

There were other days it was lucky none of the still-living clones were in his general vicinity.

There were days he sat in the grove and learned to meditate on the Living Force.

There were other days he climbed from mountaintop to mountaintop and scanned the skies for signs of rescue because he thirsted for vengeance and anything was better than just sitting around.

As the years went by, the other kinds of days became more and more infrequent. But they were always there, and as the days continued to pass, he came to accept that they always would be.

He would never be perfect. Not in the way the Council wanted him to be, or the way Obi-Wan convinced the rest of the world that he was.

Qui-Gon had never been perfect, anyways.

But as the months passed, Anakin knew he was getting stuck. If the Force was testing him, it was time for the next test. He had made great progress, had nearly passed this stage. But he could do little good here except to himself, and deep inside Anakin knew he could never be so selfish. It was time to go out into the galaxy again.

And the idea was, frankly, terrifying.

More than anything else, the fact that Anakin had years ago dismantled his lightsaber spoke volumes of how his distrusted himself as a Jedi Knight, a title he, if he were to be honest, no longer thought he should have been given so soon.

Instead, experimenting with the windfall from the wood in the grove, Anakin had carved a stave of sorts and implanted his saber crystal into the center. He had learned to use it very well, had seen how it helped him use the Force with more precision than he had ever thought possible. And every time he used it, it grew stronger, until he began to suspect he might be able to legitimately use it in a duel. Force-strengthened staves were not unheard of, though so uncommon that Cin Drallig was the only Jedi he knew that could use one proficiently – and that was only because it was part of Master Drallig's job description as Battle-Master. But he had only ever heard of them as physical weapons, never for the purposes he put this one to.

Anakin built a fire in his cave and dried off as best he could. The light was fading fast from the cloud-darkened, still-rainy sky. It would be wisest to wait for tomorrow to head down to the visitors.

This was it, he knew. He was leaving.

He set his stave and his coat and boots to one side, and then, after a moment's pause, put the pieces of his saber hilt into a skin pouch to take with him.

He smiled a little to himself as he drifted off to sleep.

_Well, whatever else happens, I'll probably get a new battery out of it. _


	5. IV: Meetings

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing that you recognize.

**A/N: **There's actually a line in Chapter II (which most people probably didn't catch) that connects to something you'll see here about the Force-sensitive trees. You see? I wasn't kidding when I said I had that planned from the start, however crazy it might be. Forget what I said about future chapters not being long. I'm writing to good breaking points rather than to word counts. Also, sorry for the wait. I had to go back to school (which is a 12 hour drive from my home to my college - America is bigger than most people think, including most actual Americans). And then the semester started, and I got sick, which often happens when the school stress starts up again. Anyway, here you go...

**Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! **I'll be answering the reviews of actual users by PM from now on (if you have that set to available).

**Guest (Jan 11 review): **Thanks for the kind words and encouragement!

* * *

**IV: Meetings  
**

By the middle of the night, the storm had passed.

Anakin awoke in the very early hours of morning, a while out yet from the dawn. Still tired, and recognizing instantly that it was not danger which had woken him, he drowsily poked his senses out into the world before realizing that he felt warm.

Physically warm, though the last smoldering embers of his fire had died out hours ago.

Mentally warm, too.

Shifting a bit, he realized blearily that he was clutching his stave, which seemed to be the source of the warmth. He blinked and sat up, taking it in his hands. Had he been sleeping _with_ it, like a little child with a soft toy?

Anakin closed his eyes and folded his legs under him in the traditional meditative position. But instead of resting his hands on his knees, he sat the stave diagonally against him, with one end next to his right foot and the length of it leaning on his left shoulder. Clumsily wrapping both arms around it, he bowed his head and touched his brow to the place where he had implanted his saber crystal in the mystical piece of windfall.

The whole stave still pulsed with warmth under his touch, and Anakin opened himself to this connection to what the Force-well was feeling.

Of course. The visitors were encamped in the grove. Vaguely he wondered what they were doing here and why they were on the ground rather than in a ship, but in another moment he let that go. Patience. When he met them, he would learn. Right now the trees had other news for him.

There was one presence in the camp that sparked a particularly strong pull of familiarity. That was what had set off the feeling that had woken him. The trees liked this person, and they were exceptional judges of character. What was more, the feeling they had sent to Anakin to convey this person's presence was _warmth_, of all things.

Warmth – which brought to his mind comfort, safety, healing.

And…home?

Focusing on the Force-signature of the individual, he found that not only were they sleeping by a tree in the grove, their hand rested on the trunk of the very plant from which the wood for the stave had fallen. The closer he got, the stronger the pull became, until it tugged at his very memories and he was jolted out of his meditation with a gasp.

Wide-eyed and shaking, he now leaned on the stave rather than it leaning on him.

It couldn't be! What was _she_ doing here?

_So the Council had convinced her to spy on that traitor from Scipio. Anakin wondered how they'd done it; perhaps they'd had to go to the Chancellor again. He'd heard that was the only way she agreed to go into hiding, back right before the war started._

_Anakin was a little surprised to find himself vaguely sad about the whole business._

_He clearly remembered the way he used to idolize her as a teenager. The brave and beautiful queen who shone so far above everyone else that she would've been well within her rights to look down on everyone she met, and yet was kind, so kind that she had been glad to have met a dirty slave boy who worked in a junk shop on a Force-forsaken crime planet. He had dreamed about her. Fantasized about being not a Jedi, but an ordinary young man, who would someday earn her love and marry her._

_His angel._

_Anakin didn't quite know what he was so sad about. That she had found happiness, if for brief periods of time, with other men? That the ardent flame of his adolescent crush had dimmed to the smoldering embers of casual adult admiration? That she had never met – might never meet – the man the slave boy had become? _

_That he had grown wise enough to realize that the angel was, if an exceptional example of one, just a human woman after all?_

_She was heading to the airspeeder bays this very moment, to leave the Temple for her new mission. He might never have this chance again._

_Turning on his heel, he headed in that direction._

_It was just as well he had, for as he reached the bay he saw her chief of security ushering her towards a speeder Anakin knew from experience tended to jostle its passengers on tight turns._

_Hurrying up to the pair, he tried to smile through unexpected nerves._

_ "__Not that one, milady! I mean, it works, but it's hardly to the standards of someone like you. I'd suggest…" He turned and pretended to scan the neatly lined rows of airspeeders before theatrically pointing to a blue-and-silver one whose innards he'd perfected himself. "…that one! She's by far the most trustworthy in our fleet." He held out his arm for her to take as she debarked the craft._

_She smiled, nearly laughing outright at his over-the-top gallantry. Her eyes widened when she took his arm, and Anakin felt his own smile falter as her small hand rested on his own of hard metal and churning gears._

_But she recovered her smile in an instant, and simply said, "How very noble of you, Sir Knight," and Anakin knew she wasn't just talking about the speeder._

_He saw her off and still stood a while by the wide open bay doors to the cityscape beyond._

_ "__Sir Knight."_

_So she _hadn't _recognized him._

_What was the use of being the most famous Jedi in the galaxy, anyways?_

The trek down to where the visitors – including Padmé Amidala – were just beginning to stir was not nearly as treacherous as it would have been last night, though it was still slower going than Anakin would have liked, what with the rocks still slick from the rain and the earth churned to slippery mud.

He reached the edge of the camp just as the light from the star of the Lycradel system began to peek over the horizon of the eastern plains and filter through the trees of the grove. He could feel the branches rejoicing, straining toward the nourishing sunshine.

He picked a sentry and headed toward them, being sure to make enough noise that he didn't startle them into shooting. When he heard a cry of "Halt! Halt, or I shoot!" he knew he'd been spotted. A man and a woman, both with blasters drawn, appeared out of the trees. They were wearing matching, but unmarked armor. It was odd – even mercenaries usually wore some sort of troop or team colors. They were clearly soldiers, but whose?

The woman, sharp-faced, with black hair pulled back into a severe bun, kept her rifle firmly aimed at Anakin's chest, but the man lowered his. The man was taller and younger than the woman, though he still looked to be in his early thirties. He had short brown hair, brown eyes, and just a bit of stubble – all in all, fairly nondescript. On the _outside_, at least.

Anakin found he could assess them in a second.

The woman was hard and unforgiving. She believed in little other than merciless ethics, the stark juxtaposition of right and wrong and the duty to defend the right and condemn the wrong. She was that unpleasant mixture: an unkind idealist.

The man, on the other hand, was kind and gentle. He cared as much about others' souls as he did about their rights and freedoms. He was brave, and he liked to laugh, and – here Anakin caught a glimpse of a fair-haired woman, her belly swollen with an unborn child, reading from a datapad, sitting in a window seat – he loved his wife. He would be a very good father.

Anakin turned to the man. "What is your allegiance, soldier? Why does your troop make camp on Lycradel III? And what business does the Senator from Naboo have here? Your wife is lovely, by the way. You two should be very proud; I'm sure you'll be wonderful parents."

The man slung the large sniper rifle he had been holding back over his shoulder. "That's the Jedi, then." He looked at his companion. "Oh, for the gods' sake, Macheal, stand down."

"But how do we know he's a Jedi, Harker?"

Harker looked at her as though she'd grown a second head, and then turned back to Anakin. "We were shot down by a couple of old ARC-170s on our way down to the planet. We could've run while still in space, but Command – that's the _former_ senator and her analysis team and the captain – thought that maybe the Jedi was still alive. We've contacted our people, and they're sending reinforcements and transport. I'll be honest, I didn't quite believe we'd find a live Jedi here, sir."

Macheal reluctantly lowered her rifle as Anakin approached and lowered the hood of his coat.

Harker's eyes widened, and then he stood to attention with a sharp _snap_ of boot heels, raising his right hand in a salute. Anakin could feel the awe coming off him in waves and grimaced. "Please don't do that."

Macheal raised an eyebrow. "What, is he important?"

Harker reluctantly stood at ease and shot her an incredulous look. "That depends on whether you think the Hero with No Fear is important or not."

She blinked. "Are you trying to tell me that's _Anakin Skywalker_?"

Anakin supplied her answer. "I'm kind of famous for being really _hard_ to kill."

Though a smile played around Harker's mouth, he still seemed at a loss, his earlier confidence gone in the presence of someone he clearly admired greatly. "Is…ah…shall I escort you into camp, Master Jedi?"

Anakin fought to keep from scowling. After five years of reflection, he had realized that many of his actions during the war were not that praiseworthy, after all. If he was going to get this kind of reaction from half the people he met, this was going to be very, very difficult.

"Fine. Just…just don't salute me again, okay? And don't call me Master. Or Jedi."

"Um…alright. What _do_ you want me to call you, sir?"

"By my name, would be fine."

"Well, then. Uh, right this way...Skywalker."

Anakin supposed asking to just be called by his first name was too much, so he fell into step with Harker as the soldier led them through the woods.

"So what's the story with your troop? Who are 'your people'?"

As they headed further toward the clearing that housed the camp, Anakin got a crash course in the Alliance and the state of the galaxy at large.

It was both much worse and much better than he had anticipated.

Everything had gone to anarchy, so much so that an illegal vigilante group was running around risking their lives and freedom doing the things that had once been the work of the Jedi. Palpatine was still free. Many, many Jedi had been killed – though he'd already known that.

But, at the same time, Palpatine was not the ruler of the galaxy. He had been ousted from Coruscant, if not defeated. The Jedi still existed, even though they had suffered a grievous blow. The Republic still struggled on, even if it had lost power and the trust of its people.

They _could_ struggle on. Eventually, rebuild and reestablish order.

A few yards from the camp, Harker stopped and asked him if he had any questions before they joined the others.

There was one question Anakin had been dying to ask since he knew that these visitors were supporters of the Jedi, that they fought for the Republic, even if they did so outside its laws. But faced with the opportunity, he found himself tongue-tied, paralyzed with fear that he might not like the answer.

"You guys keep up with the Order, right? Their official actions and stuff?"

"That's right. If only to stay out of the way of the Jedi while we carry out our missions."

"So…do you know if…that is…have you heard whether…" He trailed off.

Harker grinned and Anakin felt himself flooded with relief of a hurt that had waited five years for healing and a huge piece of his shattered world fell into place again.

"Of course we have. Master Kenobi's definitely alive, has been this whole time."

It took real physical effort not to slump into a limp pile on the forest floor and cry. The sheer release of an anxiety he had been holding in for five years felt as though it was going to turn Anakin's muscles and bones to mush. A niggling bit of worry still wondered how badly he'd hurt Obi-Wan when he'd decimated the training bond, but he shoved that thought into a dark corner of his mind for now. If Obi-Wan was out there protecting people and was still able to sit on the Jedi Council, he was probably fine.

Probably.

Anakin recognized Padmé Amidala the minute he stepped within the circle of the clearing, conferring with a middle-aged man he guessed was the captain of the downed ship. She was as beautiful as he remembered, though her Force-signature felt more sorrowful than it had been during his brief interactions with her throughout the war years.

It wasn't until Harker cleared his throat in the silence that Anakin realized the camp had indeed fallen silent. He glanced around, seeing more soldiers and a lot of ship's crew staring at the newcomer with awe as they all realized he was the stranded Jedi, alive even after five years marooned on an uninhabited moon. From the looks on a few faces, some recognized him.

The former Senator Amidala headed over with the captain in tow.

When she neared him, her eyes widened, and Anakin suddenly, inexplicably, unexpectedly found himself staring down the barrel of a sleek, silver blaster pistol.

At his side, Harker was protesting wildly. "But, my lady, this is the Jedi we're looking for. And it's General Skywalker –"

"I know." Her voice was calm and collected, cool and firm. Her dark eyes flashed.

Anakin suddenly knew what she was going to say next before she said it, and it nearly broke his heart.

In all his fears about facing the outside world again, he'd thought mostly of himself. Would he try to rejoin the Jedi? Would he go after Palpatine alone? Would he ever feel worthy to rebuild his lightsaber or rejoin old friends? Would he be able to make a difference in the galaxy without falling into his old ways of violence and rage and deep, abiding anger?

He had never thought about how people would react to seeing him alive.

A few wouldn't recognize him, even with his damningly iconic facial scar and gauntlet.

Some would react like Harker, in a revival of the old blind hero-worship.

And some would react like Padmé. They would remember.

She sent a sharp glare over to the assembled Alliance crew. "Yes, he's Anakin Skywalker. But have the rest of you forgotten that Anakin Skywalker was in Palpatine's inner circle?"

Even though he'd seen it coming, he couldn't help but flinch and look down, head bowed, heart heavy.

Because no matter how much he'd never wanted anything Palpatine had done to happen, and no matter how much of it would never directly be his fault, he had been close to the Sith Lord, had been around him a lot. And as long as the ashes of those younglings lay cold in the Jedi Temple's Halls of Memory, which would be as long as he lived, the question would haunt him.

How could he not have _known_?


	6. V: Reassessment

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. Some of the dialogue from the opening flashback has been taken from the Clone Wars episode, "The Wrong Jedi." (5.20)

**A/N: **Please hear me out with regards to Padme's behavior in this chapter. Yes, in canon, this would be very OOC behavior for her. But remember, this isn't exactly canon!Padme. In canon, she is almost _always_ in control whenever she is out in public being her awesome self and fighting for the Republic, whether in the Senate or in action. But we get to see her vulnerable side when she's alone with Anakin. However, in this timeline, she was only an acquaintance of Anakin's, and they certainly never married, so she didn't have that outlet. She forced herself to be _in control_ and _on top of things_ all. the. time. and I imagine it would get to her eventually. It's something I believe Padme shares with Leia. In the first 2 OT films, Leia doesn't really give herself any breaks, either, and while Han can be difficult, she's a little more unfair to him than he deserves. We see that side of Padme a little more in TPM, especially on Tatooine, when she's stressed out and reluctant to trust Qui-Gon.

Also, I've been informed by **Veritas1995** (many thanks) of an egregious case of bad math in earlier chapters. It's true that Wedge would be maybe 8 or 9 at the oldest at this point, so Kyella has become a generic Antilles (I edited Ch I accordingly). I know it's a joke that Writers Cannot Do Math, but, "I'm an engineering student. I know I'm better than this." (lol)

Thanks to everyone who reviewed and please enjoy this (filler) chapter!

* * *

**V: Reassessment**

_Padmé didn't say much during the interchange between Master and Padawan in the stark little cell. Instead, she listened intently, desperately straining her intellect on her young friend's behalf, doing her best to piece together which points of Ahsoka's story to emphasize and which points to skirt away from to best convince the court of her innocence. Padmé may not have been trained as an attorney, but the modes of persuasion in politics were little different – bills and causes and declarations of war had their strong and weak points as well – and Padmé knew for a fact that after all these years she had no mean skill in politics. _

_So it was that she said nothing until Skywalker turned to leave._

_ "__Well, if that's our only lead, then I know what I have to do."_

_Padmé knew that her casual friendships with such Jedi as Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ahsoka herself weren't intimate enough for her to have a very thorough understanding of the Master-Padawan dynamic, but she still couldn't help but speak up. What did the young Knight think he was going to find, anyway? Ahsoka's trial would begin in little less than two hours! There was no way he could find anything in such a short time that would justify his abandoning his former Padawan in her time of greatest need!_

_ "__Wait – where are you going? You can't leave now."_

_His tone, when he answered, was grave and laced with barely-controlled emotion, and yet the words were uncompromisingly final._

_ "__Yes, I can. I have to find Ventress and get to the bottom of this."_

_With one last glance to where Ahsoka had started to curl in on herself, he turned and left._

_Ahsoka's increasing gloom had not gone unnoticed by Padmé, so for the young Togruta's sake she bit back an angry remark. Better for Ahsoka to be given a false hope that Skywalker would find some useful evidence than for Padmé to admit that she thought that by doing so, the Knight was abandoning Ahsoka just as much as the Council had. How selfish could he be, really? But Ahsoka needed Padmé's support more than her anger, so she did her best to force a kind smile, though she suspected it wasn't all that convincing._

_ "__Until we hear from Knight Skywalker, let's work on your defense…"_

* * *

Padmé took another sip of the truly awful ration tea – really, it was the fact that it was warm more than anything else that made it in such high demand – and continued the thoughtful study of the enigmatic maybe-Jedi-maybe-not who was currently assisting with the salvaged communications equipment on the other side of the camp.

It was the fourth day since the crash of the _Star Nymph_, and thus the fourth camp they'd set up. She shivered and pulled the camp blanket closer to her body. It was much colder on this side of the mountains.

It was also her fourth day of trying to figure out how to best go about apologizing to Skywalker.

* * *

_She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth._

_Oh, how she regretted them._

_For a brief moment, his twilight blue eyes widened, showcasing an indescribable depth of hurt, the kind that would never really go away, and she realized the full implications of her words with a sickening twist of horror._

_Oh gods, she had just accused him of being complicit in the murder of dozens, maybe hundreds of his people. Even she knew that, logically, it was impossible. A Skywalker who was working for Palpatine would not be a Skywalker who was left marooned on a distant moon. Even she knew enough about the sheer levels of his power to know he had much more worth as a right hand than as a secret weapon._

_Had she really just selfishly allowed her anger over what Palpatine had taken from her personally to ride rampant over her reason, throwing blame to the nearest halfway-likely sources?_

_That would be the second time since landing that she'd let her emotions get the better of her._

_All of this crossed through her mind – not in so many words – in the space of a few seconds, and then the sorrow left his eyes to be replaced by something calm, but unyielding. He reached up with his left arm and took her trembling hands in his, gently but firmly lowering the blaster until the barrel was pointed harmlessly down at the forest floor._

_ "__You and I both know I had _no_ part in that. No part whatsoever." He was speaking loudly enough so that the whole group could hear, though he kept his intense gaze focused on hers, and his words were meant for her. "I'm not asking to join your rebel group or anything. All I'm looking for is passage off this rock and a spare battery." He took hold of his limp mechno in his left hand and "waved" it at her. "Okay?"_

_Her hands were shaking so badly with shame by this point that it was a lucky thing that she didn't shoot herself in the foot in her effort to reholster the blaster pistol._

_ "__Ah, y-yes," she stammered, her voice coming out small and hesitant. "Captain, um, make sure the Jedi has what he needs."_

_ "__Understood, my lady."_

_And Padmé found herself fleeing back across camp to where everyone had been packing up as fast as her legs could carry her, desperate to make herself useful and try to forget what had happened._

* * *

Padmé took another sip of tea and wondered idly if the history books would put her down as "the woman who underestimated Anakin Skywalker."

She had thought betting everything on that podrace all those years ago was a terrible idea. And then Anakin Skywalker won the podrace. And took out the droid control ship facilitating the Trade Federation invasion of Naboo, to boot.

She had thought it had been pure selfishness that had driven him to leave Ahsoka's side. And then Anakin Skywalker discovered the real culprit.

The whole galaxy had been convinced that he was dead. And then Anakin Skywalker showed up alive.

Padmé had made an extremely inappropriate and very hurtful remark out of her own bitterness. And then Anakin Skywalker had taken the high road, and done it without looking weak.

Padmé knew without a doubt that it was her pride that was keeping her from walking right over to where he and a few techs were huddled around the detatched comm console (if nothing else, he'd found a place among her people almost instantly, being fairly easygoing and likeable).

She could feel her control over her emotions fraying at the edges and threatening to come completely undone. She knew it had been a bad idea to come on this field mission. No one had made her come. She was the de facto leader of the Alliance; she wouldn't have lost any respect by remaining at headquarters on Alderaan. She was a former senator, after all, and while she was highly trained in self-defense and had seen her fair share of battle, she was hardly a soldier.

This mission had brought all the bad memories to the forefront of her mind all at once, and she was forced to admit to herself that she was having trouble coping. She knew in her heart that if she tried to apologize right now, she'd either trip over her own words once she got started, or burst into tears as soon as he accepted the apology – and _especially_ if he came right out and forgave her – or worse, _both_. And she also knew she was being very childish about all this, but there was something in her that didn't want to let Skywalker have the upper hand on her like that.

(Or maybe it was that she was so used to being _right_ that she was a little – or a lot – scared to try and fix it when she was _wrong_.)

Kyella's voice suddenly sounded from above her elbow. "Well, he cleaned up about as nicely as I suspected."

Padmé just hummed noncommittally.

It was true that Skywalker had always been good-looking. He'd been an adorable child, and she had certainly taken notice of the attractiveness of the young Knight who had directed her to what she later realized had been his "pet" airspeeder. _That_ had given her a shock, when she'd finally realized who it was she'd talked to that day.

During his first day with them, he'd gotten the chance to make himself look less like some sort of hermit. He'd washed somewhere – Padmé suppressed a shudder at how cold the mountain streams must be this time of year, but then again, perhaps he was used to it. He'd shaved and cut his hair to where it just brushed his shoulders. Someone had found spare clothes that fit him: a soldier's nondescript black shirt, trousers, and boots, with a long gray coat and wool cap and gloves – well, a left glove – against the autumn chill. Padmé didn't know if she preferred the grimy hermit or this new "charity case" Skywalker. To be honest, he looked a little sadder this way, if only because it made it more obvious that he was much thinner than he'd been.

Not that she was surprised, per se – he'd been living on the run in the wilderness, after all – but it put her uncomfortably in mind of the slave boy she had once known on Tatooine, which in turn brought back to mind the need for her to apologize, because if the universe was determined to make Skywalker's life hell, at the very least Padmé Amidala could try to be kinder.

As if reading her mind, Kyella spoke up again. "They managed to reach headquarters – at least they think it was headquarters – with that hunk of junk yesterday, but they only got static. If you want to take him aside to apologize, you should probably do it before help comes and it's harder to get him alone."

Padmé set her empty cup aside and burrowed further into the blanket. There had been so many times in her life when she had decided to do the right thing, consequences be damned. There had been other times, especially during the war, when right and wrong had blurred, or where doing right by her personal relationships, by her friends, would mean doing wrong by the galaxy. For once in her life, she knew exactly what the right course of action was, and was startled to find herself too afraid to do it.

"Just a thought," Kyella said, and turned to go and find the captain.


	7. VI: Truce

**Disclaimer: **If I owned _Star Wars_, all the new merch would also contain stuffs with Hayden's face on them. I'M JUST SAYIN'.

**A/N: **I am alive and not dead and so is this fic! Happy readings! And thank you to all who have stuck around and are still interested! Long chapter is long also I'm realizing that I'm growing very fond of cliffhangers. (pls forgive)

* * *

**VI: Truce**

On the morning of the next day, after a long night of tinkering on the part of the tech crew, the grounded field team stranded on Lycradel III was able to reach Alliance headquarters again – and this time, they were able to receive a reply. Well, a reply of sorts. It was, as in their first limited success, mostly static, but this time the static was peppered with words and phrases such as "acknowledged" and "send immediately." If Padmé had been Force-sensitive, she was sure she would have been able to feel group morale skyrocket. As it was, she could sense, even with a mundane sort of intuition, the palpable excitement present in camp that day.

Palpable and present, that is, in everyone but her, whose deadline to make things right with a certain Jedi castaway had been unceremoniously moved up to _right now_.

Padmé poked and patted at her frizzing hair as it tried to escape its simple braid in the still-damp climate of the lonely moon, and tried to slow and even her breathing. When her curls refused to stay in place and her rumpled clothes refused to straighten, she gave up and, taking a deep breath, headed toward the center of the camp to see if she could find the erstwhile Jedi.

The camp was buzzing with activity as the troop packed up in preparation for being picked up. They had been told to remain at their location until they could be located by the rescue team, however, so the good feelings of excitement that permeated the forest camp were only increased by a decided lack of hurry.

A quick sweep of vision from where she now stood in the camp's center revealed no sign of Skywalker. However, she did notice Harker standing near the north edge of camp, exchanging words with Captain Reddins. He and Skywalker seemed to get along well, as she had seen them together more than once in the past few days; though really, it was no surprise, given their generally amiable personalities. As she neared him, she could see that not only did he have his rifle with him, but he seemed geared up to stand one last watch before they all left this moon behind them for good.

She quickened her pace to catch up with him just as he turned away from the captain. "Just a moment, Agent Harker!"

He did a sharp about-face, startled, but recovered quickly and flashed her a warm smile, "What can I do for you, my lady?"

"Have you seen Skywalker? Do you know where I might find him?"

If anything, his smile only grew. It took all of Padmé's resolve not to look down at her feet, half-certain that everyone in the whole troop knew she had been building up the courage to apologize, and half-appalled that she, a former senator and household name, was essentially being praised like a little child still learning right from wrong.

"As a matter of fact, I did see him a while earlier – maybe about an hour ago? He said he was going to go out near our perimeter to meditate."

Meditate?

If anyone had asked Padmé a week ago which of the Jedi (that she had known of) seemed to be more of a spiritual than warlike bent, Skywalker would certainly not have made the list. The very opposite, in fact!

But now – now she wasn't so sure.

"Do you know exactly where he was going? A direction, perhaps? It's just that I need to speak with him without delay."

Harker grimaced. "Unfortunately, no. But as long as we can get hold of you easily should our help arrive," here he paused to give Padmé a chance to nod in understanding, "I don't see any problem with you going out to look for him. I'll let the current sentry detail know you're going to be out and about."

She managed to conjure up a smile. "Much appreciated."

In reality, it didn't take her long to find Skywalker.

She found him seated beside a swift-flowing brook flowing down from the nearest peak, with his forehead just touching the wood of that strange walking stick he always carried around with him.

When she hesitated, he spoke without having made any movement to acknowledge her presence.

"You can go ahead and say whatever it was you came here to say."

Still she hesitated; his tone was so neutral that she couldn't judge whether or not he might be angry with her. After all, she had first made that _remark_, and then she had avoided him for several days. He had every right to be angry.

"No, really, I can feel your need to. Your presence – it feels…" He seemed to be searching for the right word. "…stressed."

She nearly laughed despite herself. "That's a very polite way to put it." She sighed. "I'm very sorry for what I said and did when we met. It was hurtful and unprovoked – and also untrue. I know you had nothing to do with the deaths of hundreds of your people. I – I have no excuse."

Skywalker set his piece of wood to the side and stretched his long legs out from where they had been crossed beneath him. He turned behind him to look at her and patted a spot of streambank beside him.

"Come and sit. It's a little wet, but I find the sound of the running water calming."

She came and sat. "I don't deserve your forgiveness."

He shrugged. "You have it anyway." He held out his now-working mechanical hand solemnly. "But if you still think you're unworthy, consider this: it's really awkward when the two most famous people in a group aren't speaking to one another. Truce?"

She took his hand and shook. "Truce."

He turned back toward the stream, and she did, as well. He was right about the sound being calming. The low chuckle soothed her frayed nerves and for the first time, she began to actually realize the beauty of the piece of space rock they were stuck on. She decided to say as much.

"Well, at least you were marooned and left for dead in a place with nice scenery. You could have been left on your home planet."

Skywalker gave her a _look_, then played along. "While I wouldn't exactly call life on Tatooine _civilization_, they at least have starships."

Padmé winced. "I didn't think of that."

"It's okay," he said softly, reaching over to lightly touch his piece of wood with his flesh hand. "I prefer it here either way."

She didn't really believe him, and she almost said so, but her curiosity got the better of her. "What is that?"

"This?" He picked up the wood and laid it lengthwise in his lap. "This is a stave. It's a weapon, and a tool to help me channel the Force. You can touch it, if you like."

She did, feeling the smooth wood slide beneath her fingers. "It's lovely," she said with sincerity.

He took her wrist and guided her hand to the center of the stave, where the wood seemed particularly grainy and knotted. "Here," he said.

"It's warm!" she explained.

Skywalker looked at her, startled, then covered her hand with his flesh one. Padmé saw his eyelids began to droop, but her astonished gaze was quickly jolted back to the stave center, which had begun to inexplicably _glow_ with a soft, deep blue light. "What?"

He let go, and released her, and the light faded. He still looked a little stunned. "If you felt the warmth there, you must be at least a little Force-sensitive. I never would have guessed."

It was Padmé's turn to be shocked. "Me? But I'm not – "

He shook his head. "Not enough to catch the notice of the Order, not even as a Corps-track Initiate. But probably on the higher end of…um…'ordinary.' If you don't mind my saying this, it may be why you feel things so deeply."

"Assuming for the moment that that's true, you still haven't really answered my question. What _was_ that?"

"The wood is taken from the grove where your troop first camped. Many of the trees there are Force-sensitive themselves. In fact, you slept in contact with one your first night. It was how I knew where to find you, and that you were a friend. I could feel your signature through this," he tapped the stave.

Padmé was silent for a moment.

"Force-sensitive _trees_?"

He scowled and turned away, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "No one would call Obi-Wan crazy if he went around saying this stuff."

"I'm not saying you're crazy, I just find it hard to believe," she said quickly. She groped for something else to say about it. "So why does it glow?" she asked lamely.

"Ah. Well, that's because I implanted my saber crystal into the wood right there. It's a crystal for a blue blade, so it glows that color when I concentrate on it specifically." He said this matter-of-factly, as though it were a completely commonplace topic.

"What happened to the rest of your lightsaber?" she asked, curious.

"Oh, I still have it."

"Did it break or something?"

He shook his head slowly, and a distant sorrow crept into the corners of his eyes. Padmé wondered if maybe she hadn't said the wrong thing.

"No, I…I dismantled it myself."

She almost asked whether there was some practical reason, like sticks made of magic wood being more useful than a lightsaber, but she highly doubted this, and the sorrow in his eyes told a different story too, so she kept her silence and waited for him to break his.

"I didn't trust myself with it. You…you don't know how close I came to your first words to me becoming true."

She felt her breath catch in her throat but forced herself to speak anyways. "That's impossible. I know you were close to Palpatine, but how could he possibly have convinced you to turn on your own people? To kill the _children_ of your people? That's insane!"

"Not if he turned me to the Dark Side first," he breathed.

She breathed out sharply. "And how exactly was he going to do that? With Dooku's help? We all know the two were working together for the entirety of the war, but Dooku was dead. You killed him less than two weeks before the Order was issued!"

Skywalker was staring at her in real shock now. "You mean…you mean you don't _know_?"

"Don't know what?"

His shocked turned to pure seriousness. "I need to you tell me, right now, who Palpatine is."

Padmé frowned, confused. "He's the former Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Senate, a traitor to the Republic who was, with Dooku, manipulating both us and the Separatists for his own ends, and who is now hiding in the Dark Zone."

"And?"

"…and…he had the clone army designed to be able to betray the Jedi? He lied to us all?"

"_And_," Skywalker said emphatically, "he's also a Sith Lord. _The_ Sith Lord, in fact. The one the Jedi had been looking for since the Battle of Naboo. Dooku was just his apprentice – that's how he was able to control both sides of the war at once." He frowned, looking stricken, "Do the Jedi not _know_ this?"

Padmé shook her head. "I don't think so. I don't think anyone does." She frowned. "How do _you_?"

"Because, like you said, I was close to him, _too _close to him. I think he may have been very close to Turning me. Well," he said, and stood, looking wearier than his twenty-seven years (and was the little boy from Tatooine really so grown?), "it looks like the first stop after Lycradel may have to be the Jedi Temple. I did hope to avoid that right away but," he smiled ruefully, "apparently not."

He walked a couple of steps in the direction of the camp, and then stopped and leaned heavily on his stave.

Padmé hurried to his side. "Skywalker, are you alright? You're not injured, are you?"

"'M fine," he said tensely, looking anything but. After several minutes that seemed an eternity he straightened – or at least, tried to straighten – swayed, and ended up stumbling right into Padmé and knocking them both over when she tried to reach out and support him.

He rolled off her with a grunt. "Sorry," he said, but made no move to get up from the ground.

"It's okay; don't worry about it. But are you all right?"

"I will be." He sat up finally. "It's over. It's finally over. That – I could feel it, you see. Your people just engaged with the last of the clones near the southern end of the perimeter. I've gotten very used to sensing for their particular presences. They're dead. The…" he took a shaky breath and continued, "the last of my fighter squadron is dead."

She gasped and he raised a hand to reassure her. "Don't worry; it was over in minutes and none of your people were even injured. You may have brought the wrong kind of star power but your troop is well-prepared on the ground. Still," he said, getting up and reaching for his stave, "I'd like to escort you back to camp so that I can go to them. I'd like…I'd like to bury them, if I can."

"Let me go with you."

"This is my responsibility, not yours."

"Not this time. These are my people and I organized this mission. I know as well as you do that the clones have no choice in the matter. Please, let me help you."

"Alright. Thank you. But what was that, earlier?"

"Earlier? What do you mean?"

"You called me 'Skywalker' just then. What's up with that?"

"It's…your name?"

He smiled and shook his head. "That's too weird for someone who knew me when I was just a little kid. Call me Anakin."

"If that's what you want."

"Oh, but it is, my lady. Let's practice: Hello, Padmé."

She laughed and humored him. "Hello, Anakin."

"You see? That wasn't so hard."

They were halfway back to camp when Padmé heard the tell-tale rumble of a starship engine approaching. "Looks like we're ahead of schedule, then. Though I'm sure our reinforcements will allow us time to bury the fallen. Hurry, we need to meet them when we land." She turned to Skywalker – to _Anakin_ – and was surprised to see that his face was deathly pale. In another moment, the wave of fear seemed to pass and an unflinching warrior's resolve took its place.

"Remind me again: we're not in Republic space, are we?"

"No. Is…is something wrong?"

His hand tightened on the stave with the long custom of someone faced with an old enemy. "Yeah. I don't think we've been talking to Alliance headquarters."

"Are you sure?"

"Trust me. I fought them long enough to know what a Separatist's engine sounds like."


	8. VII: Myth

**Disclaimer: Don't own. None of it. Nada.**

**A/N:** Crazy chapter is crazy. But hey, we've gotten through all the opening introductions and setups, so now we can actually get into the main plot. So yeah, the "adventure" part of the storyline is set to begin right about now.

P.S. Capricious and zany old lady antagonists are the 180% of the best kind.

Thanks to **H.C.**, **Jac**, and **Youdidntwave** for your reviews! Keep them coming; they feed my motivation!

* * *

**VII: Myth**

"The Separatists? But how? I know that we're technically in their territory, but all our messages are encrypted with military-grade, Alliance-specific codes! Could they really have broken them that fast?" Padmé asked, sounding confused and a little frightened.

Anakin's mind was racing with the exact same question. How _had_ the Separatists been able to intercept and decode the transmission? And Padmé was right to be nervous. Though they might have been criminals according to Republic law, the Alliance was made up, so far as he knew, of Republic citizens. Though he had been brought up to speed on the basics of what had happened in the galaxy in the last five years, Anakin didn't really know what the exact terms were of the ceasefire between the Republic and the Separatists.

But he didn't have to know the exact terms to know that the discovery by the Separatists of armed, militant Republic citizens on Lycradel III would be a diplomatic nightmare.

At worst, it could restart the war. At best, the Republic would have to prove to the Separatists that it had no hand in the Alliance's doings. And that would mean, among other things, Padmé and her friends being tried to the full extent of the law, receiving no leniency.

Republic law if they were lucky.

Separatist law if they weren't.

Anakin cursed sharply under his breath. He had helped out with the repairs to the communications system that had been salvaged from the downed _Star Nymph_, but he hadn't stayed around to oversee the actual transmissions. Now he wished he had. Instead, he had focused all of his time on centering himself for his return to a galaxy still in turmoil, still uncertain of himself after too many close brushes with the Dark Side.

It was ironic, really. In doing what looked on the surface like a very Jedi thing to do, he had, in reality, been letting his fear – fear of _himself_ this time – dictate his actions again.

Sensing that Padmé was still waiting for a reply, he shook his head and said, "I don't know." He thought for a moment. "Is there any way for them to trace your people or equipment back to Alliance headquarters or your allies in the Senate?"

"Besides me, you mean?"

"Yeah. Besides you."

She thought for a moment, brows knitted in concentration. "I don't think so. A simple investigation will reveal that all the rest of the personnel here are Republic citizens, mostly from the core worlds. Educated, and high trained. But nothing specifically linking them. Our recruitment process is very discreet. And most of our equipment was either donated by unnamed sympathizers or," here she paused and then winced, "stolen. But I think, to the untrained eye, it would appear incoherent."

"Unless they find you," Anakin said heavily. Her explanation had made up his mind. It was exactly what he didn't want to do to start off his new life. But it was the very least he could do to repay these people who had been so kind to him, with nothing to gain for themselves.

"Which is why they're not going to find you."

Padmé just stared at him blankly. "Um. I know you said you liked it here, but I don't really know how well _I _would do if you hide me in a cave somewhere planning to come back later. I think I'm just going to have to start preparing my defense."

Anakin sighed heavily and removed the cap he had been given on his first day with the troop. He handed it to her. "Put this on."

She did. It was slightly too large for her, shadowing her facial features. Perfect.

"Is this my brilliant disguise?" Padmé asked sarcastically.

"It doesn't have to be. You don't need to be disguised per se, you just need to blend in and hope we don't meet any high-ranking Separatists who might recognize you." He steeled himself, sensing that she wasn't going to like his idea and knowing from her actions during the occupation of Naboo and simply from her reputation how incredibly stubborn she could be. "They'll see what they think they're going to see, and they won't think to see Padmé Amidala in the role of a foot soldier. Especially if they're too distracted by the presence of…well, _me_ – to think about anything else."

She protested instantly, right on cue. "No. No, you can't – "

"Please don't try to argue with me on this one, Padmé. As a lost Jedi who was unable to contact anyone outside this system, I have a logical reason to be here. You don't. Hopefully, there's not too many of them, and we can commandeer the ship from them until we reach somewhere where you and your people can safely disappear. But if we can't fight our way out of this one, we'll have to talk our way out, and I have the best chance of doing that successfully. Now," he said firmly, "we're going to head back to the clearing. If we hurry we can get there by the time they've finished landing. I want you to stay behind me at all times and try to blend into the crowd once we get there."

For a moment, it looked like she was going to try to argue again, but she finally nodded sharply, still looking _displeased_, and they began to head back to the clearing as quickly and quietly as they could.

When they were nearly there, however, the distinctive muffled roar of the Separatist ship's engines faded away to almost nothing. Anakin stopped abruptly and stayed very still, drawing on the Force to amplify his sense abilities. He heard the ship settle, and then there was a hissing of air as pistons released to open the hatch and lower the gangway.

Padmé caught up to him and he held out a hand for her to stop. Still straining, he could hear boots on metal, the murmurings of the crew gathered in the clearing – certainly they had realized by now that the ship was not one of theirs – and then, suddenly, blaster fire.

"Come on!" he cried, grabbing his stave and racing for the clearing. "And stay in the back when we get there!"

Fortunately, at the sight of the unfamiliar ship coming in to land, the Alliance group had had the foresight to create some last-minute cover that, while it would've been pitiful had the ship decided to fire on them from above, was quite effective against hand weapons. It was clear to Anakin, though, in the split second that he took to assess the situation before jumping headlong into the fray, that they were largely outnumbered and would soon be overrun.

Staying within the cover of the forest, Anakin turned and raced silently along the edge of the clearing until he was right across from where a clump of Seps had gathered at the exit to the ship and were firing on the Alliance soldiers. He picked out their commander within moments: an olive-skinned human male with officer's bars on his uniform and a haughty expression.

Even as the enemy troops nearest him pushed forward to try to circumvent the makeshift barriers, Anakin exploded out of the trees, racing forward to swiftly drop to one knee and swing his stave around himself in a practiced arc, releasing a low, controlled Force wave that knocked all the Seps between him and the ship neatly off their feet. All activity in the clearing ceased for a moment before one of the Seps got it into his head to start randomly firing at whatever it was that had just appeared out of the brush.

Anakin dodged to the side and fluidly rolled to his feet before bringing his stave up to meet the next shot, which had been aimed solidly at his chest. He could feel the power behind the shot, but a quick glance showed no damage done to the stave itself.

"Well, would you look at that," he said into the stunned silence. "It _does_ absorb blaster fire. That's gonna make this _fun_."

After another moment of stunned silence, the enemy soldiers began to fire again, though one of them disappeared into the ship's hatch, presumably for reinforcements. _Let them call for help_, Anakin thought as the Force surged within him in the familiar fierce exaltation of battle, fears about his spiritual health fleeing before the storm as he whirled the stave behind him to intercept a shot from one of the soldiers from his first blow who had gotten up again. _Let them go for reinforcements. Little good it'll do them! I'm _back!

Rushing toward the center of them now, he fought his way through in a matter of seconds, leaving a load of bruises. Reaching their commanding officer, he neatly tripped him and then put the end of the stave against his throat when he tried to get up. "Uh-uh. Not gonna happen today, buddy." The rest of the men, as expected, stopped fighting with their leader in peril. Anakin took in his opponent, finding nothing new or noteworthy that he hadn't noticed at first glance. A human male in his late thirties with the abject fear of a bully who suddenly finds himself on the (literal) other end of the stick. The man was clearly terrified of Anakin, and with any luck, they would be able to use that to get out of this impending disaster. "I need to speak with the commander of this ship. Is that you?"

"No," came a gravelly, creaky voice from the ship's gangway. "That would be me."

Anakin turned and was surprised to see and elderly woman with the same basic skin tone as the man still beneath him, though hers was crevassed with wrinkles and her neatly pulled-back hair was the snow white of very old age.

She returned his stare with a level gaze of open curiosity and the sort of admiration that had always made his skin crawl with bad memories from his childhood. It was the look of someone who had found a commodity they suddenly needed. It said, _Yes, that. That will do just perfectly for what I had in mind._

"Well, if I had known there was a Jedi boy squatting on my territory, I wouldn't have had to spend so much time shopping through the bounty-hunting scum of the earth." She sighed a very put-upon sigh that would've suited a spoiled eight-year-old princess more than an elderly head of state (which was what she certainly had to be) and then said, "But no matter. I've found you now, and you seem to be in good working order, if the state of my men are anything to go by, and that's what counts. What's your name, Jedi boy?"

Now. Now was the time to put his plan in motion and see if he couldn't repay the kindness that he had been shown by Padmé and the other members of the Alliance. Squaring his shoulders with a defiant tilt of his head, he declared, "Anakin Skywalker."

She just _laughed_.

Padmé's rebels shifted and murmured uneasily.

She laughed for a very long time, and when she was done she had to wipe tears away from her eyes. The two guards flanking her seemed unfazed, suggesting that they were used to accommodating her whims and fancies without question.

Anakin, for his part, was very confused.

"I meant your _real _name."

Anakin fumbled for words. "Uh, that _is _my real name."

"Don't be ridiculous, boy. Everyone knows that Anakin Skywalker is a myth."

He blinked for a few moments, then managed, "…a myth?"

"Oh, but you wouldn't know, would you? Poor dear. You've been stuck here all alone, and with no HoloNet. I could not live!" She fanned herself with fluttery movements before continuing. "It's been all over the academic papers in the last few years. These are real scholars, mind you, not the press or, Lady forbid, the tabloids. They've analyzed what can be known about that legendary Jedi's life and come to the conclusion that it was all a fabrication. A show! A sham! And probably the most brilliantly and intricately constructed piece of propaganda ever to grace the minds of average galactic citizen. The statistical analysis is done and the conclusion is spreading across the galaxy. And even the Jedi were in on it! Of course, they and the Senate all deny it, but pretty much his entire 'acquaintance' was from either the Jedi, the Senate, or the military – all funded by Republic taxes. There's just not enough evidence to prove that he ever even existed." She shook her head grimly. "I know it must be hard learning that your hero is the product of a lie, but so it goes. But you must have noticed that he was _always_ away at war, yes? Oh, but look at me carrying on. You must be wondering what my interest is in you…what was your real name?"

Anakin just stared. Had Ahsoka been here, she would probably have given her second lightsaber for a holocamera; he couldn't begin to imagine what his face must look like right now. Dimly, he could feel the amusement of a few of the Alliance members. So apparently, this ridiculous theory had been thought to have been long dead in the more educated circles of the Republic, but not so much in Separatist space.

When he didn't reply right away, she just waved a hand at him and said impatiently, "Never mind, 'Jedi boy' will do. It's not as though there are any others of those about here. So, Jedi boy, how would you like a ride off this isolated rock for you and your band of motley friends? Oh, no," she said when he tried to start explaining, "I don't care who they are or where they came from. If they'll help you help me, I can have them taken wherever they need to go – as far as the edge of Republic space. So, Jedi boy, are you willing to help me in exchange for passage?"

Anakin was – albeit warily – willing, but he couldn't speak for the others. He turned, and, pretending to scan the entire group, surreptitiously caught Padmé's eye. When she gave a tiny nod, he turned and nodded shortly to the crazy old crone.

"Excellent!" She clapped her hands together before proclaiming, "Jedi boy, I have a job for you!"


	9. VIII: Mission

**Disclaimer: **If I owned things, I would have released a version of the glorious version of the Force theme from the glorious trailer which, if I didn't mention, is glorious. I NEED ALL THE EPIC MUSICS OH FORCE I NEEDS THEM.

**A/N: ***Aesthetic: where the author's note is supposed to be, the readers can only hear the sound of the author cackling. But they read on, certain that this couldn't mean there's another huge plot twist in this chapter.* MWAHAHAHAHA

* * *

**VIII**

**Mission**

"We found you easily enough, though I'm sure you can imagine that you're hardly what we expected to find. The Sherriikkan Kingdom has acquired more territory under Queen Nirri, in the aftermath of the war, than we have the population to occupy – or even the labor force necessary to harvest the resources from. So we've placed discreet sensor beacons where we can at points we believe might be of interest to undesirables – fringe elements, if you will, pirate gangs and other threats to society that might try to establish bases or operations. There was one such beacon hidden among the rubble of the old Separatist experimental station there. It was intended as a trap for medium-scale criminal organizations, the kind that might have enough firepower to consider a few surviving clones little threat when faced with the promise of possible military-grade salvage or a strategic base location. Lately, though, we've been using them for a different purpose."

Minister Toriin finally paused to take a breath, allowing Anakin to put in a word of his own about a slip he'd caught in the man's description.

"You said, 'old Separatist experimental station.' Do the Sherriikkan not consider themselves Separatists, then? Wasn't this once a Separatist battleship?" Anakin gestured to their surroundings within the cramped war-room-turned-conference-room.

The thin, middle-aged civil servant scowled and twiddled his datapad stylus more violently in his right hand. Anakin was suddenly reminded of one of Watto's least favorite debt collectors, an irritable man with an intellectual superiority complex who was impatient with everyone but especially with children. That man, though, had worn spectacles – the nonexistence of health and safety standards on Tatooine meant that such delicate surgeries as an eye correction were generally not recommended – and had been in the habit of ramming them up his face whenever he was particularly angry, which was most of the time. Looking at Toriin now, Anakin was torn between a feeling of strong dislike and the urge to laugh.

"I see you're still harping on about that," the Minister snapped. "How many times will we need to reassure you that we intend to fulfill our end of the bargain before we are able to get down to the business at hand? The sooner you help us, the sooner we will be able to help you. Then you'll see that we're sincere about returning you to Republic space. And on that note, none of _you_," he said airily, jabbing his finger in the direction of Anakin and the few Alliance members that had joined him to discuss the terms of the deal, "have much room to negotiate anything, so I'll thank you to allow me to continue."

As Toriin scrolled through his datapad with more force than was really necessary, muttering under his breath the whole time, Anakin spared a glance over to Padmé, whom they had managed to get into the meeting with a lie about her being Captain Reddins' first officer. He almost couldn't hold back his laughter this time when he saw that her eyebrows seemed almost stuck in a raised position of definite amusement. Despite Toriin's accusation that they had no room to negotiate being true, Padmé clearly wasn't so worried about herself or her people that she couldn't find some humor in the absurdities of Queen Nirri and many of her cohorts.

Anakin was surprised, though not unpleasantly so, by how much that simple fact lightened his own spirits.

"As I was about to say, before I was so _rudely interrupted_, we have lately been looking for trespassers whom we can recruit, coerce, or bargain with in order to investigate a disturbing trend of rebellious acts against Queen Nirri's righteous sovereignty."

Anakin shared another glance with Padmé, and in her sober expression he saw that she was thinking the same thing he was. Toriin had just unwittingly answered Anakin's original question: the Sherriikkan might pay lip service to the Confederacy of Independent Systems, but Queen Nirri essentially considered herself an independent entity and was obsessed with establishing and expanding her own authority, to the point of taking more systems under her rule than her government could handle. It was a reassuring thought – it meant the Sherriikkan were probably less likely to betray them at the end of their mission.

Confederacy of _Independent_ Systems, indeed.

This time, it was the captain who asked the pointed question.

"If the Sherriikkan Kingdom was truly so massive that it could not send its own men to investigate a threat, I should think I would have heard of it, even in the Republic."

Toriin's hand stilled. "We _have_ sent our own operatives and agents – even a troop of soldiers." He was speaking much more quietly and slowly now than before.

Understanding dawned on Padmé's face, and not a little apprehension. "None of them came back," she breathed.

Toriin nodded and scrolled a bit more to the page he needed. "Iratt Shipyards. Heard of it?"

Anakin nodded. "It was the Separatists' most important and productive shipbuilding center for vessels that weren't from the Trade Federation or Banking Clan. Is it in Sherriikkan territory now?"

"Now, and always has been," Toriin said with a look of patriotic pride. "But in the last few years, there have been disappearances from Iratt. Ships and ship parts unaccounted for, deliveries that never arrived, government and shipyard employees of all levels going missing. It took us well over a year to even determine that these events were all connected, and even longer to realize where it all led back to – what the cause was, see. And when we began to send agents in _there_…" Toriin shook his head and muttered, "I don't know why she ever thought that was a good idea."

Anakin felt his blood run cold at that last sentence and he _knew_. He knew at least part of what Queen Nirri's job would entail, the general astrographical region they would be entering, especially considering how close they already were to that part of the galaxy.

He wasn't ready.

But what other choice did he have?

Aside from abandoning Padmé and her crew – _as if_ – he supposed, if he really tried, he could overpower the entire crew of this vessel, who, really, were no longer his enemies in any sense of the word, and take the ship by force of arms.

But really, embracing Darkness in order to avoid Darkness – Anakin didn't think even Obi-Wan appreciated a good bit of irony _that _much.

"You're sending us into the Dark Zone. You think Si…you think Palpatine has something to do with the disapperances."

Toriin shrugged uncomfortably, having apparently not noticed Anakin's near-slip. "We have no proof of who's behind anything, though we do suspect that _someone_ is trying to build up a military in there. Otherwise, why would they take workers, technicians, and engineers, and not just ships? Unless your precious ex-Chancellor is constructing an elaborate space elevator infrastructure on some goddess-forsaken system, and I highly doubt that.

"But yes," he continued, "we're sending you into the Dark Zone. We were able to receive a partial distress signal from one of the last field operatives dispatched in the general direction that we believe the missing ships and people were taken. As it's the most interesting thing we've received from those we've sent, we'll just ask you to pop over to her last known coordinates and investigate the general vicinity. Obviously, if you encounter an enormous enemy fleet, you need only head straight back the way you came and report as much. Otherwise, we require a full scanner report, including a short survey of the surroundings. We will loan a ship to you and your crew, of course."

Anakin let Captain Reddins begin to ask the logistical questions about ship types, shields and weapons, provisions, and et cetera. His mind was a million parsecs away.

His almost calling Palpatine by his Sith name had reminded him of something crucial: he, and now Padmé, might be the only people who knew Sidious' true identity. One of them would have to survive this in order to warn what was left of the Republic and the Jedi Order. Unless…

Anakin warily, nervously stepped back from his own thoughts. That line of thinking felt dangerous.

But it would not be silent.

_Unless you meet him and defeat him, and then there will be no need for warnings_. Anakin tried and failed to refocus on the conversation going on around him, unable to sort out the clutter of feelings that he hadn't really been able to deal with when he had been stuck, stranded and helpless on the third moon of Lycradel.

There was the desire, deep and resilient, to take vengeance for the murder of the Jedi at the end of the war. For the exploitation of the clones, of his own men, of whom the last of which that he knew anything about now lay cold in the ground, gunned down trying to fulfill a mission they didn't believe in.

There was the familiar ambition, the thirst to prove himself, to return to the Republic as a conquering hero and show them all.

But mostly, drowning out even those two loud voices, there was guilt.

Padmé had been close to the mark. He had been so close – but he had been blind. So much of the blame for the chaos of the last five years could be attributed to his own willful ignorance and foolish pride.

And here – here was a chance to set things right.

And it was unbearably tempting.

* * *

Anakin experimentally gripped the blaster rifle with distaste. He didn't dislike blasters on some sort of bizarre aesthetic principle like Obi-Wan did – they were good weapons for non-sensitives – but they were very tame compared to what he could do unarmed.

"Remind me why I need this again?" he asked. "It's not as though we'll likely be leaving the ship."

"Yes, but if we do get boarded or are forced to land and fight, I'd rather we didn't have to find you a weapon," Padmé said with remarkable patience.

The two of them sat in the two seats available in the cramped hall area behind the cockpit of the borrowed Sherriikkan heavy freighter. As arguably the two most important people on the mission, neither of whom were part of the official navigation crew, they had decided not to try to crowd into the cockpit until the ship exited hyperspace at the given coordinates.

It would be soon. In the back of his mind, Anakin's thoughts had started to race with adrenaline in anticipation of what they might find.

"I have a weapon," he said, trying not to sound petulant. "You saw me fight with it."

"You know as well as I do how dangerous it is for you to be here, considering what you told me about Palpatine."

Anakin decided not to mention his secret wish that they really might run into the Sith Master on this mission. He still wasn't sure how he felt about it; if nothing else, most or all of the Alliance troop might not survive such an encounter, as Sidious was likely to be accompanied by formidable military might, and Anakin would not be able to protect everyone, especially not while distracted by the Sith.

Anakin couldn't shake the feeling, though, that he would have to confront Sidious – as Sidious, rather than as Palpatine – before all was said and done. He wasn't sure how he knew. Maybe it was because he knew that Sidious was too infatuated with his power to give him up as a potential apprentice. Or maybe it was inevitable, destiny even, though he certainly still wasn't entirely sure that he believed in that so-called prophecy.

But Padmé wasn't finished. "And really, Anakin, how is a blaster rifle any more inconvenient than that giant piece of wood you insisted on bringing along?"

Jolted out of the mire of his thoughts, Anakin shot her a quick grin. "Good point. I don't suppose you've ever considered doing a comedy routine in the Jedi Temple as a possible future career option should this go wrong, have you?"

She looked confused. "No. Why?"

"Because you could do a mean impersonation of Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Padmé laughed. "I take it you've heard similar things before."

"Yeah, though it was more like," here he attempted a badly-faked Coruscanti accent, "Really, Anakin, how could studying your assigned schoolwork possibly be less intellectually stimulating than spending hours poring over engine schematics and technical manuals?"

They both laughed (mostly at the accent), but Anakin found his laughter trailing off first, hit as he was with a sudden pang of longing, longing that he didn't have to face all this alone. He didn't know what kind of advice Obi-Wan would give him in this situation – probably advice the old Anakin would not have found welcome.

But he wished Obi-Wan was _here_. Knowing that the one sentient being he trusted above all others had his back would make everything easier, whatever he had to face.

Padmé's laughter died away, too, when she noticed Anakin's silence. She observed him quietly for a moment, then with her typical kindly insight, gently said, "You miss him."

Anakin nodded. "I wish – "

He didn't get to say another word, though, because at that moment they exited hyperspace, and Anakin was hit with a sudden sense of intense danger from the Force. Scrambling to his feet, he slammed a fist down on the door controls to the cockpit, nearly destroying them in the process.

Ignoring Padmé's questioning voice behind him, he entered and looked through the ship's cockpit viewport for the source of the warning.

It wasn't a vast fleet of ships. It was much, much worse than that.

"Turn the ship around," he growled at the cockpit crew.

Captain Reddins looked at him sharply, clearly startled by his tone. "Forgive me, Skywalker, but there's nothing here. We ought to conduct a scan – "

There was no time to explain. Anakin was shouting now. "Turn the ship around, do it now! Now, while we still can!"

When the captain merely frowned at him, he lunged forward and dragged the pilot out of his seat, then attempted to turn the ship around so that they could return to Sherriikkan space.

The ship didn't respond.

"No," he said quietly. Then he tried again.

Again, there was no response.

This time Anakin swore loudly and punched the console before rounding on the captain with a furious cry of, "You see?!"

Padmé put a hand on the captain's shoulder, trying to defuse the situation before his obvious disapproval of Anakin's actions just made him more hysterical.

"Tell us what you see. What's wrong, Anakin?" she asked, gently but firmly.

"That's what's wrong. I don't know what it is, but it shouldn't exist," he said, shuddering as he pointed to the source of the dark danger he had felt as soon as the ship had exited hyperspace.

Padmé's eyes widened. "Do you think…do you think_ he_ could be hiding on that small moon up ahead?"

Anakin tried to calm his racing heart and make sense of all the Darkness he was feeling, though he didn't dare reach out and risk giving himself away. Finally, he shook his head. "I don't think so. He probably had a hand in it, but I don't think he's there. But Padmé…" he trailed off.

"Yes?"

"I don't know just _what_ that is, but it's definitely _not_ a moon."


End file.
